Skip to main content
Main

Turkey Hash

A stew of shredded cold turkey simmered with water, seasoned, thickened with stuffing or flour, finished with cream or milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Turkey Hash

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut the cold turkey into shreds or small square pieces.

  2. Combine the turkey and water in a stewpan.

  3. Cover and stew gently for a few minutes.

  4. Season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

Make the gravy

  1. Thicken the gravy with stuffing or flour as desired.

  2. Add cream or milk mixed with flour and butter for a richer flavor.

  3. Add more milk or water if the gravy is too thick.

Serve

  1. Garnish with points of dry toast.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Turkey + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,592 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  4. Turkey + peppertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,636 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Cold turkey
Provides the meat that forms the body of the hash.
Stuffing or flour
Thickens the liquid into a gravy by swelling with heat and binding water.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and body, softening the gravy's flavor and mouthfeel.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer flavor and smoother texture in the gravy.

The step that matters

Adding the thickener to the gravy. Flour or stuffing must be cooked in liquid to swell and thicken; added raw or too fast it can clump. Adding more milk or water corrects an overly thick gravy.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Turkey SoupTurkey Soup71 recipesTurkey StuffingTurkey Stuffing26 recipesTurkey DressingTurkey Dressing24 recipesTurkey PattiesTurkey Patties12 recipes